Louis Penven Jr.

Rank: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces

Serial: 06978557

Unit: 23rd Bomber Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group, Heavy

Entered service from: New Jersey

Missing in Action: July 27, 1943

Declared Presumed Dead: July 2, 1947

Burial: Missing in Action — Tablets of the Missing, Manila American Cemetery, Manila, Philippines

Awards: Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, Air Medal with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters, Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster

Staff Sergeant Louis Penven Jr. was born around 1918. He entered the Army around January 1940. He was serving with the 31st Bomber Squadron, 5th Bomber Group, Heavy at Hickam Field in Hawaii, where it primarily engaged in search and patrol missions off Hawaii when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941. Then a private, Louis Penven was wounded in that attack, earning his first Purple Heart. As part of the Seventh Air Force, the 5th Bombardment Group consisted of the 31st, 23rd, 72nd, and 394th Bomb Squadrons, and after the Pearl Harbor attack, flew armed reconnaissance missions for 11 months. He also saw action at Midway. His unit subsequently was sent to Espiritu Santo in the Solomon Islands, and with a mix of B-17s and B-24s fought in the Solomon Islands and Philippines campaigns as part of the 13th Air Force.

By 1943 Louis Penven had been promoted to Staff Sergeant, and received several decorations for valor and heroism in combat. He was declared missing in action on July 27, 1943, and later was declared to be presumed dead.

Louis Penven had ties to Camden County, NJ, and had lived at 12 West Helen Avenue in Maple Shade, Burlington County, NJ. His death was reported in the August 5, 1943 edition of the Camden Courier-Post. He was survived by his mother, two brothers, Robert and Oscar, and a sister, Marion. He is memorialized on the Camden County WWII war memorial at City Hall in Camden, NJ, and at the Maple Shade, NJ War Memorial on Main Street in Maple Shade, NJ.